


Buddha in Distress

by makeit_takeit



Category: Swimming RPF
Genre: 2004 Summer Olympics, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 22:41:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15982028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeit_takeit/pseuds/makeit_takeit
Summary: Michael is finding his newfound celebrity a little hard to deal with. Ryan is there with the assist.





	Buddha in Distress

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ on 4/8/2009.
> 
> Written at some point before that, when Ryan Lochte was not yet famous enough to realize that my characterization of him as a rational human being and/or a voice of reason was patently unrealistic.

Michael can feel the hands on him.  
  
Some are just nervously fluttering fingertips, some insistently clutching claws, most somewhere in between. He raises his face, looking through the haze at the ceiling, and tries to draw a clean breath. He gasps deeply, but all he gets is a nose full of the noxious, saccharine-smelling artificial smoke that's being pumped by the billowing plume down out of fans in the rafters. It cloaks the dance floor and its patrons in a foggy mist that swallows the light in pockets, then reflects it back in piercing, unexpected beams. It makes everything feel closed in, shrouded, and Michael feels the hands on him and he wants to scream.  
  
This is something he never thought about, about people wanting to  _touch_  him. Everywhere he goes now, strangers, people he doesn't know and never will are laying hands on him, like they might a Buddha. On the street, men want to shake his hand, hold theirs up for a high five as he walks by. Women want to hug him, want him to bend his neck so they can reach his cheek for a kiss.   
  
He has thought about fame, dreamed of it in fact. He has pondered it in all its aspects, imagined how it would be when it came, the good and bad of it, the sacrifices and the advantages. But this part, the part about the  _touching_  him? That, he could never have imagined until it happened. So Michael smiles, as these strangers invade his personal space, and wonders if it’s going to be like this forever.   
  
Here in the cramped quarters of the dance floor, where bodies are pressed against bodies, where athletes, fans, locals are all packed in tightly for a solid, writhing, thumping 10 meters in every direction, all the people touching him makes Michael feel dizzy, unstable. His knees feel like jello under him, his head spins with woozy and unsettling unpredictibility, and his mouth is dry, his throat parched. It crosses his mind briefly that a person his size should probably be able to handle 4 lousy beers with more acuity than he seems able, but those 4 beers seem to have sapped his ability to concentrate along with his ability to maintain his balance, and the thought leaves him only to be replaced by another, more urgent message from his brain:   
  
_Must. Find. Water._  
  
He stumbles toward the edge of the swaying sea of people, extricating himself as he moves from the grasping fingers of the circle of women who had surrounded him on the dance floor. Their protests - sultry, beckoning voices full of lusty promise - fall on deaf ears. He smiles back at them, as apologetically as he can manage; he's walking away.  
  
He plunges his hand into the icy tank at the end of the bar and pulls out a water bottle, and asks the bartender if there’s another way out besides the front door. He can't understand a word the guy says, but his eyes follow the direction of the man's gestures, and he smiles by way of thanks. Outside the door is a tree-lined walkway bordering a deserted side street. Half the street is cast in the inky shadow of the club, the other half buzzes with the pinkgreenblueorange glow of the neon signs that line the street out front. Michael leans back against the wall, in the shadows, and swipes the icy side of the water bottle along his brow. He tilts his head back to suck a piece of ice from the bottom of the bottle, where it clings with gravity-defying magnetism, and crushes it between his teeth with a satisfying crackle. He runs the bottle along one forearm and then the other, letting the condensation transfer onto his sticky skin; cooling, refreshing. Finally he opens the bottle and takes a long swig. He sinks down against the wall and kicks his feet out in front of him, and realizes that for the first time in as long as he can remember, he is actually, literally alone. And so he does not smile, for the first time in just as long, and instead breathes the deep, exhausted sigh of relief normally reserved for those who have survived an IRS audit, or otherwise cheated certain death.  
  
"Damn," says a voice above him, just as his eyes close, "rough week at the office?"  
  
Michael's eyes fly open, to the extent that a drunk and exhausted man's eyes  _can_  fly open, and then blink slowly as if trying to place the face he's focusing on.  
  
"What." Michael stops, confused, willing his brain to work, then starts again. "What are you doing here? I mean, ya know. Out here, instead of in there?”  
  
Lochte just grins, that same blinding grin that Michael tries not to look at too closely, because of what it does to his breathing patterns, but at present he just can't seem to summon the will to be that disciplined. Tonight he just stares up at Ryan, breathless and heavy-eyed.  
  
"Same as you, duh," Lochte says, and Michael stares blankly, still panting. "I saw you leave, and." Ryan looks away off at something in the distance that Michael can't see. "It looked like maybe you could use some help."  
  
"Oh," Michael says, and his eyes close again. It feels so fucking good just to close his eyes.  
  
"Shit, how much've you had to drink, Phelps?"   
  
Michael can  _hear_ the smirk in his voice, without even looking at him.  
  
"I lost count," Michael shrugs, and thinks hazily that the last thing he needs is fucking Lochte thinking he's some fucking light weight. "Eight? Nine?" He shrugs again, a helpless bystander to his own lies. "Who the fuck knows?"  
  
Lochte is silent; Michael keeps his eyes closed. He couldn't say how for how long, exactly, but when his eyes open he recognizes that he's in the back of a cab, and he can feel the bulk of Ryan beside him, the heat of their shoulders, their thighs pressed solidly together, can smell the musky-soapy scent of him and the chlorine underneath, and he breathes deep to fill his lungs with it and closes his eyes again.  
  
The next time they open, it's to blinding sunlight and a room he is absolutely certain he has never, ever seen before. A wave of panic rushes over him before he senses the unmistakable presence of a body next to him; not touching him, just near enough to radiate a telling heat. Then Michael slowly turns his head toward the sleeping figure next to him, and.  
  
"What the  _fuck_ ," he hisses, and scoots toward the farthest edge of the bed, heart pounding. He instinctively pulls the sheet up toward his neck, as if what's hidden behind the bedclothes could be realistically considered a matter of any secrecy.  
  
Lochte's eyes open, and that grin splits his face. This time, Michael's not drunk and his eyes do exactly what they’ve been trained to do when Ryan grins at him – instinctively avert. Michael is nothing, if not well-trained.  
  
"Um, what?" Michael stammers, heart thudding against his ribs, "I mean. Um." He doesn’t want to ask the only question he really wants to ask, but his mind is screaming,  _what the fuck happened, what the fuck happened, no way, no fucking way, nothing happened, of course nothing happened, OF COURSE NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED._  
  
"For chrissakes, settle down Phelps." Lochte rolls his eyes and stretches languidly, groaning and rolling to his back. The sheets settle down around his hips, but Michael tries not to notice. His eyes struggle to find a place to land – anywhere, on anything, but Lochte.  
  
"You passed out on the fuckin street dude. You should be glad I didn't leave you there."  
  
“Oh, yeah,” Michael drags his eyes back to meet Ryan’s, but only because it seems rude not to. “Thanks, then.”  
  
“Fuckin right,  _thanks_.” Lochte snorts and shoves at Michael’s shoulder, then rolls over. A few seconds later, his sleep heavy voice asks,  
  
“You sure you’re okay? You seemed pretty fuckin fried. Last night I mean.”  
  
Michael looks at the broad, tan back, the tattoo on the shoulder blade, and swallows slowly. He thinks of all the people, all the unwanted hands, the strangers grabbing at him all week long, and has a flash-memory of Ryan pressed against him in the cab last night. Not reaching for him, not tugging or pulling. Just holding him up, supporting his weight, balancing him. He exhales.  
  
“Sure,” he says automatically, because what else can you say when you’re Michael Phelps and you just won the hearts of your country and a boatload of fuckin gold medals? Anything else, and you sound like an spoiled prick. “I’m okay.”  
  
Ryan turns his head, cocks an eyebrow back over his shoulder. It’s a second, maybe less, but Michael can feel Lochte reading him, sizing up his answer and weighing it for truth. Michael blushes like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Ryan sounds skeptical, voice raspy as he turns away again. “Just, ya know. If you ever need some shit handled, or just –  _whatever_  – you can always call me. Everybody needs somebody to pick 'em up off the street and take their drunk ass home, once in awhile; even Michael fuckin' Phelps. Remember that.”   
  
In a matter of seconds, he’s snoring.  
  
Michael waits until his heart stops jackhammering, then slides out of bed. He finds his shirt and jeans from last night over the back of the chair, and slides them on. He tries hard not to think about how they got there, as he slips out the door of Lochte’s room and eases it closed behind him.  
  
He’s back home in Baltimore before he notices that Ryan’s number has been mysteriously programmed into his phone.


End file.
